


their proper habits vaguely shown

by temporalDecay



Series: what will survive of us is love [4]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-03
Updated: 2014-03-03
Packaged: 2018-01-14 10:54:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1263649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/temporalDecay/pseuds/temporalDecay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karkat attempts to sort out his relationship with Darkleer. Darkleer attempts to sort out his relationship with his guilt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	their proper habits vaguely shown

“What do you want?” 

You blink up in surprise, staring at Karkat through the wide mirror along the edge of the cleaning basin cabinet. He looks oddly surreal standing just outside the ablution trap, water raining harshly down the tiles, hot enough to invade the entire block with steam. You blink a few more times, partly to clear the fog gathering in your eyes, but also to piece together what he might be talking about. 

After a moment, unable to conjure an answer that does not sound too ridiculous on your lips, you let your head fall slightly to the side, hair rustling wetly against your back. 

“I beg your pardon?” You say, apologetic on reflex, because you might never stop feeling apologetic around the younger troll. 

Karkat has at least grown used to it enough that he no longer demands you stop it. 

“It just occurred to me,” he replies, flippant in a way that you recognize as barely concealed defensiveness, “that I’ve no idea what you might be wanting for, right now. And I meant to… do something very sentimental and dumb, but then I realized I didn’t know how to actually pull it off.” 

“You could perhaps begin by making sense,” you tease, deadpan enough, but with just enough of a ghost of a smile across your lips to make Karkat’s tense shoulders ease down somewhat. “What are you talking about?” 

“The Flushed Moon Festival is next week,” he says, not looking at you as he steps into the spray without closing the flimsy glass door behind him. 

You focus on brushing your hair instead, rather than looking at him, because it feels wrong, somehow, to look at him after he reconquers himself from the mindlessness of heat. He’s back to his senses and he will remain so until the season ends and the lust starts boiling in his gut too loudly for him to ignore. And yet, despite it all, he has not sent you away. You’re mildly horrified to realize you’ve long stopped expected him to do so. 

“It’s traditional,” he adds, when you don’t have words to reply, “so I figured you’d like it.” 

It’s traditional, he means, to gift a matesprit an extravagant, compelling gift, as a token of renewed appreciation and a promise of yet another sweep of loyalty. You balk at the idea, however, because you are not—cannot claim to be what he implies. 

“I’m not—“ 

“If you don’t want to be my matesprit,” he says, with that firm, hypnotic strength of his that makes the cultists and the Empress’ servants kneel to him all the same, “then just say it. But we can’t really go on like this, can we? Because I do want you to stay, and you keep staying all the time, no matter what, but you never stop acting like I’m going to get bored and just… throw you away or something stupid like that.” 

“I do not deserve—“ 

“Fuck what you deserve,” Karkat snaps, with an ease you envy quite a lot, “this is about what you want, nothing else.” He looks at you over his shoulder, and you feel yourself burn inwardly, because of course you’re watching him, you’re _always_ watching him, and he knows it. “So do tell, what do you want?” 

You put the brush down carefully, least you break it or the counter, and then very quietly abscond out of the block as fast as you can. 

  


* * *

  


There’s something inherently soothing in shooting an arrow and hitting a target dead center that makes your pan stop boiling with confusing ideas. At least for a little while. It’s such a precise exercise in self-control that it requires almost the entirety of your concentration to pull it off. So you have fewer resources left to make yourself writhe with unacceptable thoughts and feelings. 

You are strong. You have always been strong. It has always been your greatest gift and your deadliest curse. When you were young, you had the strength to shatter mountains and keep up after your master, your owner, the sun around which you meekly orbited. He roamed the land because he wanted to, pulling strings and starting fires because it was in his nature to want the world to burn. You alone were strong enough to follow where he went, to endure all he asked of you, and to offer even more than he would take. Thus you alone where the fool allowed to step close enough to glimpse at the mind behind the obscene leers and the gaudy paint. He called you pet, and you relished in it, in serving someone so clearly above you, in being useful to something far greater than yourself. He humbled you, controlled you and made you feel you had nothing to fear, because there was something far larger than you keeping you in check. Under his shadow you never feared your temper, because you knew yourself safe from the nightmares of the night you learned to hate yourself. 

He called you pet and fingered your hair and kept you, in all senses of the word, and you were happiest in his service, dispensing the gruesome, brutal justice with which he honored the Empress. 

He called you pet, and you loved him dearly, then, when he looked down at you, with all your faults and misshapen, crooked sins, and smiled because you didn’t fear him and your lack of fear only made him want you even more. He loved your docile strength, and made no secret of it. He loved the way you never cowered but always yielded, how you bared your neck to him knowing he would not break it, and the certainty you wouldn’t fight him if he chose to break it. He love you and gave you a place, with certainty and law and rules and truth to keep you from self-destructing on your own, consumed by the all-devouring self-loathing that ignited inside you the night you went insane and burned down your life. 

You have always been strong and you have always known how to tame your strength. You cock the arrow into place with a grim smile and let it fly with just enough strength to embed it into the target. 

You were strong enough to survive the night the mutant died. It was meant to be a gift, that, a show of trust and a tender thing, from a troll who knew not how to be kind. There was no higher honor, at that time, than to have the Grand Highblood cede a kill that rightfully belonged to him. And you took it, clumsily, without the stomach or the creativity to make it a spectacle like you should have, but even your refusal to stoop down to torture amused him. You remember, because to forget it would be worse, the way he’d tilted your head up and pressed mocking laughter into the side of your face. So amusing, he’d said, so prim and proper. And then he’d told you to try, just for him, and gave you the second kill of the night, a second gift to let loose and relish in the violence and the wrath always boiling in your gut. 

You were strong enough to look at her and not collapse when you realized the enormity of what stood before you, poisoned by the hatred in her eyes and the laughter still ringing in your ears. You were strong enough to act, in the split moment that it mattered, even if you spent the rest of your life regretting it. You were strong enough to not turn back, groveling for forgiveness, when the roar of betrayal made your ears bleed and your entire body sway. You broke your heart twice, that night, and yet you remained strong enough to survive it and live long enough to regret it. 

You fetch a second arrow, between deep, steady breaths. You place it on the bow and pull it back with ease, just barely touching it because that is enough. And then you let it fly with renewed frustration, hitting the next target without mercy. You’re horrified at your own disappointment when the wood does not begin to bleed. 

You have told Karkat about that night. About what the cult remembers and what truly happened when his Ancestor screamed his impotent rage at the heavens. You have explained to him, as much as you could, how and why you let his Disciple go, where the scars on your face come from and why you let them fester until they left a mark no molt would erase. 

But you never told him there was only one moon in the sky, that night, and it was red and flushed like it only is once a sweep. That you took his Ancestor’s life as a loving gesture to the troll who owned you so thoroughly that putting a collar or a brand on you would have made no difference at the time. 

You’ve never told him the night the Summoner’s rebellion ended, the moon was just as red and flushed, and that the only gift you ever offered to commemorate the holiday was your hands around his throat, because his pride would not allow him to die at a lowblood’s hand. 

You reach for a third arrow and realize to your dismay that the bow has snapped under your fingers. You are strong, have always been strong. Strong enough to survive and regret, to love and forgive. 

What do you want, he asked you, as if it were so easy to remove the ghosts living in your soul. 

You put the bow away and hope you are strong enough to admit you don’t know. 

  


* * *

  


“I do not find you lacking,” you say, the night before the suddenly dreaded date, and realize just how the words sound a moment after they leave your mouth. 

You’d never cared what color where the moons are or which one hung from the sky each night. But you’ve been staring at them lately, watching the green one steadily wane away and the pink one grow progressively larger and redder which each night, and you can’t quite explain why. 

Karkat stares at you like a predator studying prey, and perhaps you shouldn’t welcome the comparison or the implications behind it, but you know in your heart you are not strong enough to stand alone anymore. 

“As a matesprit,” you clarify, walking further into the block and closer to where he sits. You resist the urge to reach and sit on the floor, by his feet, and the fact you adopted such a habit around him should have alerted you of the dangerousness of the situation much earlier than anything else. “I do not find you lacking,” you repeat, looking at his lips rather than his eyes, lest your strength vanishes all at once. “I would not… decline, should you want to formalize this… agreement of ours.” 

“I know,” he replies, solemn and quiet, sighing a bit before standing up, and it’s laughable how small he is and how much you wish to fold yourself into a compact, dense ball he can carry in his pocket from here on. “I kinda… figured it out, last time you had a fucking meltdown and flat out demolished this place.” You flinch, but before you can open your mouth to say something unfortunate, he snorts. “Not that I mind, no one minds, you saved lives, Darkleer, that’s—“ 

“Let us not talk about that, if you don’t need to,” you say, and it causes Karkat’s tirade to crash and burn at your feet so hard you can almost feel the heat coming from the wreckage. “You may, instead, call me Horuss.” You pause significantly. “If you’d prefer.” 

You accepted the name of Darkleer an eternity ago, but if you’re truly, genuinely going to do this, you have to be strong enough to admit where it came from. Who it came from. Karkat stares at you with fascination, a bewildered look spreading steadily across his face. Then he frowns, eyes narrowed, and you feel your insides writhe again. 

“What do you want?” He asks, yet again, without mockery but a certain sense of dignity that makes shivers crawl across your skin. “Horuss?” 

“I want to be worthy if what you offer,” you whisper, folding yourself to your knees so he doesn’t have to tilt his head back to stare at you in the eye. “To not be something you’d regret.” 

“You are,” he promises, and for the strangest reason you want to believe him and never question his word again, even if part of you can’t stop assuming he must be lying, somehow. “And you’ll never be.” 

“You don’t know who I am,” you say, because it’s true. 

Your bond was of convenience and necessity at first, and though you doubt Karkat still feels that way now, you would hardly call your entanglement _romantic_. You don’t know when he became such an integral part of your life, or when you decided to dedicate what’s left of it to serve him. You don’t know if he understands the depth of your commitment and that he is not required to reciprocate or accommodate you for it to remain valid. All you know about him has been roundabout and sidetracked by more pressing things. You’ve learned much that is to know about him, but you doubt he could say the same with any confidence. You’re a fastidiously private creature by nature, after all. You don’t share easily. 

“I don’t know everything you’ve done,” he corrects, gently, just as gently as his hands resting on your jaw and tilting your head up to look at him in the eye. “I know it must be pretty fucking terrible because you’ve never told me, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know _you_.” He keeps your face in place without having to force you, so that when he asks the question strikes you to the core. “What are you afraid of?” 

You open your mouth to lie, berate yourself for the instinct and instead lean in to his touch, as if to borrow his strength to replace yours. He’s vibrant, where he stands. Sure of himself and confident and unrepentantly inappropriate in every possible way. You want him to stay like this. You remember him shivering and collapsing, and it makes your entire insides clench. 

“One day, leaving you will be kinder than staying,” you promise, ominous because you know yourself, and despite it all, you are too old to pretend otherwise, “I fear the day I am not strong enough to do it.” 

He leans in to kiss you and you don’t fight it. His hands are still calloused, even with the golden rings he wears now and the fact he hasn’t gone out to hunt in forever. He’s not the child you took in, an eternity ago. He’s grown and forced the world to change and twist around him, until it is somewhat to his liking. He moved from pariah to cult leader to actual leader of the Empire as if it had been his hatchright to do so. He’s firm and fierce, without ever sacrificing that perpetual kindness that makes trolls stop cold in his presence, unable to process the contrast effectively. And through it all, you’ve stayed by his side, despite your rage and your silence and those million things that demonstrate, time and time again, that you’d be better off back in exile. You have nothing to offer him of any significant worth anymore. The only politics you ever knew how to play are antiquated and obsolete, much like yourself most of the time. You have strength and intelligence, but they’re aimless and capricious. You spend your nights roaming around his palace, much like he used to roam about your ruins, and the irony is not lost in you. 

The truth of the matter is that he stopped needing you a long time ago, but you refuse to leave him, because every time you try, he reaches out to pull you closer. 

“If you ever want to leave,” he says, smiling wryly as he fingers your hair, “I’m not going to stop you. I don’t want you to stay because you have to. Because you owe it to my Ancestor or you think it’s penance for all you’ve done.” His smile thins somewhat, “I want you to see yourself as what I see you, one day, to forgive yourself for what you’ve done.” 

You bow your head and rest your forehead on his shoulder, a horn pressing up against his neck, so you don’t have to look at him in the eye. 

“What I’ve done is unforgivable,” you reply, voice barely above a whisper, lacking the strength and conviction you once had, because he’s worn them out of you, bit by bit, like water turning a rock smooth. 

“No, Horuss,” and he runs his fingers through your hair, pulling you closer instead of pushing you away, “what the fucking _world_ has done to you is unforgivable, you pitiful sack of misery.” You shiver under his hands. “Let me make it better, even just a little. Please.” 

The truly terrifying thing, as far as you’re aware, is that you want him to. Deep, deep down, you know you could enjoy life by his side, not just tolerate the slow passage of time. Deeper still, you can admit you want it. You want to relish in every tiny detail of this life, like you used to relish in the ones in your old one. You want to find bliss in your servitude, like you did before, but the fear of repeating the same cycle of betrayal and carnage will not allow you to. Karkat would think you’re being stupid, you’re sure, and part of yourself thinks you _are_. It has been eons and that unfortunate situation has absolutely nothing to do with the strange circumstances you find yourself in, now. You’re quite certain, you’d die before betraying Karkat, that you couldn’t bring yourself to harm him in any way. 

But you used to think the same, believe it with every fiber in your soul, when you looked at Kurloz grin lopsidedly at you from atop his throne. And you still turned your back on him and all he meant to you, and left him screaming and raging in the execution block. And you still obeyed when you found him, later, much later, bleeding and broken in a battlefield your indecision made you join far too late to make any sort of difference, and clenched your fists until you heard his bones break. 

“You already do.” 

It’s not happiness you fear, not really. It’s how you’ll destroy it, this time around, if you’re granted it again. 

  


* * *

  


There are red lights and hearts everywhere, as the festival gets in full swing. You follow Karkat around as he walks along a designed route in the streets, the first public appearance of the Exalted Governor, since the Empress left the planet. They gawk and stare, and some of the judge and some of them laugh, but they all see you, looming after him, and they keep their distance as they should. They remember you and your rage, and the sheer destruction that you’re capable of. It doesn’t matter if Karkat holds your hand through most of the night, small, short fingers tightly twined with yours. There are flowers and lanterns and a long winded speech with surprisingly few threats of violence. Then a banquet and performers and a thousand tiny stands offering all sorts of useless trinkets. And through it all, Karkat holds your hand, sometimes tightly, sometimes lightly, and you’re not sure if he’s holding you close or using you as an anchor. 

It doesn’t matter, by the time the red moon is sinking in the horizon and the scorching light of the sun starts to spread, the festival is over without any incidents. You help him out of his overly complicated clothes, and smile indulgently when he sinks into the slime with a grateful moan, immediately demanding you follow suit. 

“I never did ask,” you say, as you slide into the recuperacoon and he goes to lay on you, “what is it that you want?” 

He squints at you a little, hair dripping with slime and expression suspicious before it melts into a smirk. 

“I’ll give you a list tomorrow,” he promises, shifting about until he’s comfortable. “But right now, I’m good.” 

You open your mouth, reconsider the idiocy you’re about to say, and instead close it so you can nuzzle the top of his head with your cheek. 

“Good,” you say, because it is, and you need to stop questioning it until it’s not. “Good.” 

You’re still afraid. You think you’ll be afraid for a long time still, because he’s offered you forever, if you want it, and what he still doesn’t quite grasp is that you don’t know how to want things without destroying them. 

But, you think, you’d like to learn. 


End file.
